Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here.
Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election, and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show.
This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.
So if that is something that's important to you, please go to Breakingpoints dot com. Become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.
We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you at Breakingpoints dot com. Good morning, everybody, Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal, indeed we do.
We have a lot that we're going to try to get through this morning. So we're taking a look, of course, at those tariffs. What are they going to be? They'll be instituted tomorrow on quote unquote a liberation day. So looking at what we know and what the fallout is likely to be, Trump just pardon a whole rash of fraudsters. The details are really quite stunning. So we'll get into that everybody from hawk to a girl, well, I guess you can get a pardon, but her action was no
charges filed whatever, go to Hunter Biden associate. That one is particularly grotesque, so give you all the details there. Coffee Zilla is also all over that one. Bibe is now saying that their plan for Gaza is Trump's plan complete ethnic cleansing. So you know, we are getting some clarity about the horrors that will be continue to be perpetrated in the Gaza strip. Trump is threatening to bomb Moran,
so that's cool and great and looking good. I'm taking a look at Elon's election lines and what they could mean. Fashakiir is going to join us to talk about the stop Oligarchy tour and where it may be headed, where the Democratic Party may be headed, And we had to put this in Elon Baby Mama Drama. Ashley Saint Clair, hosts of the video. They're going back and forth on Twitter. Laura Lumer's involved, whatever, So we're trying to get that in on the end.
Of Tabloid at the end of the show. I mean, yeah, it's just too good, right, folks. We can't look away. It's one of those things I saw.
To the character of the man who's running the country right now.
Say yeah, we could say that. All right, let's go ahead. Oh, by the way, Happy April Fool's Day. Isn't this funny? You know, when you're a kid, you think April Fools Day is like a real thing, and then you become an adult and you're like, oh, yes, it's just a normal day.
You gotta go to work.
Youngest is obsessed with April.
She loves mystifying.
For her birthday, she asked for like a whole prank kid. Yeah, she loves pranking, like a little harmless stuff, you know.
I don't know. It's one of those things where.
Putting a fake snake on the bed.
Or you become twenty three, you go to work and you're like, oh, it's just April First. It's like you have to do the water cooler thing and be like, have a good day.
Today, but make sure you are extra aware of what sort of news you're being fed today, because people do love on Twitter to like make some wild shit up.
Who will believe it? So be on extra guard today.
For even April Fools. That's just a normal day on Twitter. That's another normal day on E one let's go ahead and get to these tariffs. We've got some new announcements or indications there from the White House, White House Press sectory care our Line Levitt speaking on the topic.
Let's take a listen.
We have another big week. On Wednesday, it will be Liberation Day in America, as President Trump has so proudly dubbed it. We'll be announcing a tariff plan that will roll back the unfair trade practices that have been ripping off our country for decades. And I'll let the President get into the specifics of the announcement, but he has a brilliant team of trade advisors. You have Secretary Besant, Secretary Lutnik like that.
Steere exemptions for farmers and considered for.
Teriff no exemptions at this time, Liberation Day, no exemptions. The line on this has probably changed about fifteen different times from the White House. Trump has currently said he has settled on Liberation Day on the plan.
He says, I've settled it.
Liberation Day means that you will find out tomorrow.
That's basically what it is.
We have got several different liberated from our suspense.
We will be liberated from our suspense. I could mean and across the board ring tariff. According to them, it could mean reciprocal tariffs. It could be according to him, lesser tariffs. It could be every country, it could be ten to fifteen countries. Nobody really knows. That's why the stock market and all of that is currently in haywire. And yesterday stocks were down, then they closed up because of some of those comments there from Donald Trump.
But the point is is that this level.
Of suspense and people being kept on their toes means that no matter what happens, you're going to see a major reaction there.
That That was also the press avail in which she announced that they're closing the case.
I know, true trust on signal gates occur.
So the brightest minds were convened in you know, Elon's doze team got on it. They figured out the great mystery of how Jeffrey gold number got into Mike Waltz's phone, and there they're moving on.
I am not yet allowed to reveal some of the things that I know about Mike Wallace. One day I will be allowed about some of the things that he has been saying behind the scenes, and you will not believe some of the things and excuses that he has come up with, and it goes way beyond Elon's technical advisors and the White House getting to the bottom and case closed on this.
It's genuinely some of the stupidest things that I ever heard in my life. Not yet allowed to say it, but I will get to it one day.
Tea teas for the future.
You know, this is the problem with sources.
They're like, tell you this stuff off the record, and it's so juicy, and you're like, come on, dude, let me say something, you know, and then they're like, nah, you can't do it yet, you gotta wait.
Et cetera. So we'll get there.
I'll hammer, I mean, I'll ask if I can actually reveal it. Okay, let's go to the next part here. This is on the Fox News confronting Caroline Levitt on the polling of this.
Let's take a.
Listen, and our new Fox News polling shows that people perhaps are concerned with how things are going. This is as of March fourteenth, Those that say they disapprove fifty six percent more than half. Those who approve of the president's handling of the economy is at.
Forty three percent.
And in that same polling, we asked about the most important issue facing the country today, and top of the list is inflation, and the economy is nonumber two and jobs. Those are first and second. As it goes down to political division and preservation of democracy, is the president doing enough to answer answer the needs and demands of the American voter when it comes to the economy and lowering prices.
The President and his economic team are working on this effort every single day. And the President is not only trying to fix the mess created by the previous administrations in competence and reckless spending. He is trying to fix decades of unfair trade practices that have ripped our country off, that have sent jobs overseas and not have forced millions of Americans out of their jobs.
So yeah, look, even Fox and all them, I mean, all the polling on this is now like pretty clear people are not that happy about it. Let's go and put this next up on the screen. This is just where the futures are right now. Literally kind of as we speak. Yesterday the S and P closed up by about point six. Right now it's down by about point six.
It's like basically flat. As I said, nobody has any idea about what's going to happen, which means that it's not quote priced in, and it does mean that there's going to be a massive correct or could be a massive correction, depending on what the policy that he announces on Wednesday.
Yeah.
Well, and as we've said at nauseum, at this point, like even if you wanted to, even if you're like a tariff person and you're in favor of some version of this, you don't even have like a story to tell or anything to defend yet. So tomorrow perhaps all will be revealed, maybe or maybe he'll put something on and take it off again like he did previously.
Who knows.
And I think it was Joe Wisenthal that made this point on Twitter yesterday, which is an important one, which is some of his explanations for why the terrorifts are good are completely contradictory. So, for example, he'll talk about how it's, oh, it's going to raise all of this revenue. Tariffs are effectively, especially when they're across the board, effectively a regressive tax, but oh, they're going to raise all of this revenue for the US Treasury and make our
country super wealthy. But he'll also indicate that, oh, it's going to cause all of these jobs to come back, and you know we're going to reindustrialize America.
Well, those two things don't.
Really fit together because if you're actually reindustrializing, then you're not getting the tariffs on the imports. So none of it really adds up, not that I really want to even overthink it at this point. So so we don't actually know what we're truly talking about here. But you know, with regard to the politics of this, this is an extraordinary situation for Trump where the economy is like his weakest.
He has a number of issues in which the American people are not too happy with what he's been up to, but this is probably the biggest political liability for him. This is the area where he has turned what used to be a strength into one of his greatest weaknesses. And the other point that I saw made on Twitter Eshair, which I think is a good and important one too, is that even just the uncertainty of are they on, are they off, what are they doing, et cetera, has
already caused a freeze in a lot of economic activity. Businesses, who are you know, importing a bunch of goods and anticipation who.
Are freezing hiring.
Even just the uncertainty has an economic impact and takes an economic toll as we saw.
You know, the estimate of.
GDP in the first quarter was zero point three percent growth, which is extremely low. You even see it in some things like flight bookings from Canada to the US have fallen off like seventy percent. So there's hit to the tourism industry as well from the on again, off again tariffs and the sort of belligerent attitude visa of e Canada and Mexico as well. So you know, there's a lot of fallout from this, even before the full tariff regime goes into effect.
Where are they going to go? Winnipeg? All right, they'll be back. I'm just sorry Canadians.
But there's a there's a big world out there. Why option a lot of options? Okay, uy to.
Greenland then since it's so close, Oh actually no, that's going to be ours soon.
I'm joking.
Coming back to the tariffs, to the tariff conversation, You're exactly right, and this is the problem with you and I run a business. Somebody's says, hey, you may or may not have X amount of money in a month and they're like, should we do any hiring?
No, any hiring?
Right right?
This is obviously this is how any normal person who runs a business is going to be thinking.
This is why confidence, planning and all of these other things.
Yes, even in an uncertain environment, it's never a sure thing, but to be able to make decisions, you want to have like pretty good information about how things are going to go. When you have uncertainty, that causes a pullback. That's going to cause lack of spending, perhaps firing. And if we do see some major tariffs that go into place, there is no question that that's going to cause major reaction. What's also interesting is about some of the reaction overseas.
Let's go and put this up there on the screen. Lots being made of this. I'm still actually trying to wrap my head around this. So China, Japan, and South Korea have announced, according to the Chinese state media, but you know, the Japanese and the South Koreans have not denied it, have said that they have agreed to respond to a US tariff. Agreed to respond to US tariffs, an assertion that Soul has said is quote somewhat exaggerated, and that.
Tokyo has downplayed.
However, it's one of those where they're talking out of both sides of their mouth. Now, we shouldn't say this is like some full scale, like joint declaration between the three countries who all hate each other, if you will recall some.
Of the Asian dynamics.
But the issue does get to the purpose not only of trade and tariffs, but fundamentally about what are we trying to do here, And what we're trying to do is reciprocal tariffs, which is if they charge us this and they charge us that, that I think speaks to some basic.
Level of market fairness.
The problem is, I keep saying, is that we have all these crazy justifications. It's fentanyl. It's not fentanyl. It's cars. It's not cars, it's US cars, but some US cars are actually made with a ton of foreign parts. You have not got to sell America and really the world on what is the future going to look like? When you have uncertainty, people look in different directions. So is
this some full scale like realignment against you? No, Japan and China are not allying anytime soon to retaliate against the United States. But you know, sometimes you know the whole enemy of my enemy is my friend thing. The Japanese they're ruthless in their trading partners and their own terif regime. You can go and look at some of
the things that they do. How do you think that You know, their government has propped up and has made their companies some of the most prominent in the entire world.
It didn't happen by accident.
So they know you have some sort of existential threat or even marginal threat, you know, to their overall bottom line. Here with the serfs, they're gonna have to look in a different direction. It's going to change their overall calculus and relationship with the United States.
Now, I want to be clear.
This is often used by neoliberals to say that we should never put tariffs on our quote allies, and I think that's ridiculous.
That's not what I'm saying at all.
But I'm saying you have to have care and a plan and actual certainty. This goes for the consumer and for other countries as well. And that's my biggest critique here of the entire policy.
Yeah, and I mean nations around the world be foolish not to look at the you know, the way that he's handled already, the relationship with Canada and Mexico in particular, and all of these threats and there are terrors that were put into place, and you know, it's threatening economic
war against Canada in order to annex them. They would be foolish to not look around and go like, okay, well, on our own, we don't have any prayer against the United States America, which is a giant economy and really important to any number of nations around the world.
On our own, we don't have a prayer.
We need to figure out some sort of way to coordinate to have a chance of, you know, effectively pushing back against whatever it is that Hemp has in store for us. So it shouldn't be surprising when you see conversations like this, and the leaders of these three nations just had a meeting and you know, so we don't know exactly what was said there, but the indication is there's at least somewhat of an opening to coordinating on
some level. So that is you know, extraordinarily noteworthy here in terms of you know, what the what the world is going to look like going forward.
Yeah, I mean, I'm curious to see how it shakes out in the future because the South Koreans and the Japanese also talked a really big game the first time around whenever they were tariffs that would have put into place. Trump actually tried to put major tariffs on South Korea during the first term. Actually, yours truly wrote an article against that because I was like, it's a bad idea.
We're in this whole thing, with this whole North Korea situation right now, why would we exactly want to be, you know, having tension here with South are Also the thing is about South Korea and Japan. As people know, I hate Europe. But here's the thing. The Japanese, the South Koreans, they're good allies. They're tremendously economically important and biable to the United States. Not the Japanese because they're literally constitutionally prohibited, are not allowed to spend on their defense.
Look at the South Korean defense budget.
I mean, look also at their like they're not ideologically against US. Economically, they're good partners. They're dramatically important to the overall US economy, and then broadly in the region that is the most important region that's actually increasing its overall economic activity. It's population and it's importance to America, and it gets probably one fIF teenth the amount of care that it deserves here in Washington. Probably not the
people I would antagonize. At the same time, they certainly do have an imbalance in our trading relationship with the two Here.
We're going to turn now to Donald Trump.
Asked here about what these small scale tariffs and whether those were going to be into place. He's downplaying that, giving us again some peak into what it might be.
Let's take a listen on the tariffs that you're planning.
So there are you're expecting to hit something like ten to fifteen countries?
Is that right?
Oh?
Well, all of the countries across the board who told you.
Ten or fifteen country heard that?
So we heard that you were going to aid seventeen.
But you didn't hear it from me.
And so how many countries will be in that initial trunk?
But you'd start with all countries? So let's see what happened. There are many countries. I haven't heard a rumor about fifteen countries, ten.
Or fifteen you've started with all countries.
Essentially all of the countries that we're talking about wouldn't be talking about all countries done and cut off.
And if you look at the history and you look at what's happened to us, you go to certain places, go to Asia, and you take a look at every single country in Asia, what they've done to the United States in trade and by the way, in military, in a certain way you look at you would take a look at trade with Asia, and I wouldn't say anybody is treated as fairly or nicely, but we are.
Going to treat them. We're gonna be much more generous to them in terms of art. We're going to be much more generous than they were to us.
So yeah, you could take that for what you will. Let's gohe and put this up there on the screen from Jeff Stein. He says Donald Trump is described by several poor sources as pushing big with tariffs. He's described as a simple universal rate as high as twenty percent, described as where of advisors trying to talk him down and weaken his trade agenda, which he believes limited the tariff impact of his first term. Thinks tariffs are a
win win for federal revenue and bringing back manufacturing. Is thinking of transforming the US economy in terms of decades or century, some sources said, rather than the next few months. It's one of those where I've said, you know, you can make this case. I think you could make a probably good case. Many people would stick with you, although in our consumer society it might be a little bit difficult.
But the problem I just keep coming back to is just about the communication and the chaotic nature of the way that much of this is being put into place will significantly pose a major risk, not only to your political chances, but let's be honest here. You know, even if you do announce some sort of major tariff, what confidence would any of us have that that's actually going to remain into place? And that gets to that uncertainty with a business. If I was a business, I would just sit there and.
Wait it out.
I'd be like, Okay, shut it down, let's see what actually happens. Of course, that'll have, you know, big ramifications, but it's probably better than paying some crazy terraff for something, especially if you know that it's going to go away in a few weeks, or at least if you have a relative confidence.
Yeah, or even waited out like Okay, this guy's going to be in office for a few years and then we're very likely to get a different president probably, you know, and then you know, the regime will completely change again. So yeah, we can just wait it out, like put our heads down and muddle through the next few years and then see what comes down on the other side. So I think that's all very possible. Also, we can put Joe Wisenthal's piece up on the screen here at
this A six and a seven. He has eight different thoughts about, you know, what these tariffs really mean. And one of the things he's pointing to here, liberation is in a binary event is kind of what I was referring to before. We're already all of the they're on, they're off. Here's what we're doing. No, we're not doing that. No we're going big. No it's going to be just a few countries. All of this has already created problems.
Let's go to the next piece as well. He also talks about the fact that he talks he's making a case here that you know, when economies become rich, then they're capable of building the most complex things, and so if you're trying to go back to reindustrial reindustrialize like sort of simpler products, then that might not be the direction you want to go in. I don't fully agree with that because I do think you know, for me, I think there's a targeted tariff approach that is logical
and is beneficial. We all saw during COVID how detrimental it was to our safety, health and security that so much of the supply chain was overseas, so that there were basic medical supplies we couldn't produce here. You know, also in terms of supply chain fragility, like it was a disaster. So there is a tariff scheme that I would support, but you know, the whole across the board
situation to me is insane. And then the last point that he also makes is that even if your goal is reindustrializing, like, these things are very interconnected and it's very difficult to game out what impact is going to have. So, for example, oil companies have reduced output because they're concerned about the price of some of the like electrical components that they need in terms of their process. So you know, when you're doing this across the board thing, and it's
not matched with any sort of concerted industrial policy. In fact, the government's going the opposite direction of rolling back some of the previous industrial policy that was put into place. It's also not even clear that you're going to get any of the results that you know, are gaming for here. Whatever those are not that that's really been spelled out
by Trump in particular. But you know, if we zoom out here, I think that the big picture is, yes, there is another potential economic paradigm that Americans could be open to that wasn't based around them being consumers of a lot of cheap goods from overseas. But if you are going to just take away the cheap goods and high prices and not offer any other alternative like benefits,
then no, it's going to be dramatically unpopular. And you're also flirting with a stagflation situation in which growth is lower zero, you still have high inflation. That really makes it difficult for the Fed to do anything because you know, if they hike interest rates, then you're lowering growth. Even more if they lower interest rates than you are increasing inflation.
So that's why that situation is so incredibly difficult to deal with and so dangerous, and you know is really a looming possibility right now.
Yeah, to retardge this last thing one, Yeah, because I really like this argument that he makes. What he's talking about in terms of riches is monetary riches, and that is what we need to redefine.
So Joe has a great statistic that I learned.
Quote one of the most important facts about the world is that in the last fifteen years, China has become the global manufacturing powerhouse, at the cutting edge of multiple industries. But the Shanghai Composite Stock Index is scarcely above where it was in two thousand and nine. So, I mean, you know what US stocks are up from two thousand and nine. I literally don't know off the top.
Of my head. It's probably hundreds and hundreds of percent.
Are we richer richer materially than we were in two thousand and nine, I would say no, absolutely not. In China, I would say, yeah, there are a lot richer in terms of they got drone deliveries, They've got the byd Jaumi cars, their society and their overall like net growth and the quality of life is dramatically increased. I mean, look,
I'm just gonna sit here it admit it. Go to Shenzhen today, Go look at any video, go talk to any person, or look at anything in Shenzin in Chung Ching, in any of these like major cities, even that you wouldn't even necessarily know, like the mid tier cities of China, and tell me that they're not living better than we are now. Yes, they're living in apartments. Certainly, they don't have any crime, it's pretty safe, train goes on time, there's you know, I could go on forever. These are
different models of economic activity. But I think that's the point that he's trying to make about riches. We are richer in the sense that, yes, the flat screen television is much cheaper, fantastic. We are richer in the sense that I mean, be honest, this iPhone in my hand, is it all that materially different than the iPhone four that I bought in twenty ten.
No, it's just.
Not, like, be honest, here the camera quality is better, and also it's still manufactured in China last time that I checked him. That's I think the point that he's trying to make about manufacturing and riches, as in the definition of riches financially is basically the one that the United States has decided to go all in on. He even says that he's like the greatest export of the United States is US stocks and treasuries. Okay, great, I mean you know it's definitely better off for it.
Right.
We talk a lot about this in the chips context. The chips are all designed here. You know, what does that thing say whenever you open your Apple box designed in Coopertino, California, Why does it stay designed because it's designed here, it's manufactured somewhere else? Tell me you, as the power, who's actually materially richer?
Well, I think it's them.
Not only that, but those you know, high end design and like pushing the tech frontier. It's not like we're maintaining our edge there, you know, it's we're at best at competitive level with China, and I think increasingly they're surpassing us in terms of like the leading edge of transformative,
future oriented tech is increasingly coming out of China. So you know, the bet that we made that we could keep this high the sort of like high end like a design in Coopertino and keep the low end manufacturing there, Well, it turns out if you are the one manufacturing the products, and also if you have a government that's been very committed to investing in research, investing in technology, trying to push their country in that direction, then you know, you
have a huge advantage in terms of innovating for the future. Meanwhile, our companies have grown into these you know, giant monopolies in many ways, complacent in many ways, much more focused on, you know, how to game the stock market and like give themselves stock buybacks and do financial engineering. Then they have been on genuine innovation. I don't want to erase
the genuine innovation that has been going on. You know, we obviously have these llms that are leading edge coming out of American company, from American investment, et cetera.
But if you look across the board.
I mean, certainly in the ev where all China's kicking the ass of every American car company, it's not really even close. There was a post that was going viral on Twitter. Soccer tells me it's a little bit of a gimmick, but gives you a sense of like the sort of future oriented direction that China's heading in. They just issued a commercial license for these like drone quad copter taxis, where you can you know, as like a
consumer hop in this. It's like some Jetson's kind of shit that they're contemplating here and meanwhile we're you know, like pumping the next talk to a coin or whatever.
So and I have the stats.
So since two thousand and nine, the S and P five hundred is up, let's see a total return on investment of eight hundred and forty one percent. The Shanghai Index is up two point two eight percent. But you know, be serious, Yes, there are a lot of people out here. If you were lucky enough and you've had your four
one k and all that, I think that's fantastic. But you should take a look at what the alternative economic model of that is and what it means to be actually rich and what that you know, the definition of that to me is not just where the S and P five hundred is.
So Trump has gone on a pardoning free of all sorts of white collar criminals. We've got here the Nicola founder that was that supposed like hydrogen powered truck company, Trevor Milton receives a full pardon.
This was a crazy one.
Ozy Media co founder Carlos Watson pardon for his finance or commuted the sentence of his financial conspiracy case.
Let's go on to the next one.
We had some crypto types who also are being let off the hook.
Hawke to a girl.
You know she's not going to face any charges after her pump and dump. This guy, Jason Galanis he had his sentence commuted. This is the second New York Post says X Hunter Biden business partner partner to receive clemency. I dug into this dude, saga. What a loathsome, disgusting piece of shit this guy is. He scammed a Native American tribe out of sixty million dollars, convinced them to
issue these sixty million dollars in bonds. According to him, used his proximity to the Vice president, Oh Hunter Biden or the President Hunter Biden is my associate, etc. To build up his own credibility, and then just took the proceeds of this bond sale, which he claimed was going to be invested in some sort of annuity so that this tribe could invest in themselves and do economic development
for their tribal nation. Instead, he took it and bought like a ten million dollar Tribeca apartment, spend eight and a half million dollars on Gucci clothes and jewelry and this luxurious lifestyle, and also paying back his previous legal expenses and his new business ventures and whatever, like just a totally disgusting person. However, he from prison testified in Republicans like Biden inquiry impeachment thing, and so now he's
getting let off the hook. The Nicola guy, I don't know if you guys remember this story.
I'm sure you do it I very well.
Remember they put out.
This propaganda that supposedly showed their trucks which are like, you know, giant like mac truck, tractor trailer things. Supposedly showed this you know, driving along. Well it turns out they just had it rolling down a hill like it was all fake, lie to investors. Total fraudster. So he's being let off the hook. In some ways, the Haktua girl is like the most sympathetic one because you could argue she's just like Domin, didn't know what she was really getting into.
I mean that.
Compared to the guy who stole the sixty million dollars from the tribe, Like, she is the more sympathetic case here. And then we have put B three up on the screen. There were some other crypto fraudsters. They were basically like running a sort of money laundering operation. In blatant defiance of US regulations and laws. So these people have also been these three Bitmex crypto exchange co founders also.
Let off the hook.
It's just absolutely extraordinary. Coffee Zilla has been taking a look at some of these cases. This was a video that he posted on his void Zilla channels that was titled Crime is Legal Part two. Let's take a listen to a little bit of that.
This season of American Crime Is Legal is getting even crazier.
The hawk to a girl.
She had her investigation closed obviously because she basically did more or.
Less what the president did.
Yes, it was a little bit worse, but kinda will look bad if you took out somebody for a meme going while the president did it.
But that's sort of your run of the mill stuff. You see a lot.
I wouldn't even be commenting on it, except that we've now moved from not just not going after people who've done something wrong, but sort of releasing the prisoners from our I am talking about Trevor Milton. He's one of the og fraudsters of the twenty first century. This guy faked a hydrogen truck company, which was caught out by Hindenburg research where he rolled a truck down a hill
and told everyone that it worked. Okay, he got arrested, sentenced to four years in prison, but now he won't be finishing that because he got an unconditional pardon from President Trump.
So where do we go from here? I think SPF is up next.
And that dude, the Nicola Trump guy had apparently given like one point nine million dollars to the Trump campaign or to the Trump inauguration or something of that nature. I mean, it's just very clear like any Trump associate they.
Can get it away with whatever.
It doesn't matter who they scanned, it doesn't matter how egregious, they can get away with it. And then meanwhile, you know they're charging people who like hurt a tesla with terrorism and trying to throw them in prison for twenty years. So it's a complete it's the complete and total end of even the aspiration that the criminal justice system is going to be, you know, sort of like politically neutral what well, and.
Even on white collar crime, like, let's all be honest, it's not exactly.
Like they're working overtime in that department.
So yeah, I mean, the bar for getting yourself prosecuted for, like on a federal level, for white collar it's actually very hot. People think it away with so much. People think that it's it's not you actually have to go. If you look at the federal sentencing guidelines and stuff, you need to steal or be responsible for millions of dollars before, I mean think about it. It probably costs the Feds like a million bucks to even investigate somebody
and take you to trial. So it's got to be pretty high whatever your alleged response, you know, fraud or responsibility is here.
So there's just no earthly reason why any of.
These people should be part of the Nicolo one is absolutely the most egregious one to me. I actually do think though that the OZI founder, that Carlos Watson one is even more egregious because since we covered the story from the very beginning and then looking into it one of his business associates, it seems almost one hundred percent clear that his associates lobbied Alice Johnson and other like black MAGA influencers lobbied. You take that term for what
you will. I don't have any other more information on it, but somebody somewhere got to some of these black Maga influencers, and that's how he got himself off.
I mean, he's stone cold guilty. You can go and listen to the tapes.
We played it here on our show about the fakery of that website.
It was egregious, right he was found guilty.
Yeah, no, he's literally guilty. Like it's did he plead or did he?
Was he convicted?
I forget regardless. I mean he's admitted guilt here at least at some level. And why are we you community? It's like, no, he defrauded investors and basically dropped up this fake media empire and beyond that, like deceived major corporations like YouTube, and they made a mockery of the entire thing. Same with these same with these bitmax people.
I mean it's yeah, like, look, I'll be the first here to tell you that the FEDS can overreach, that they can prosecute people for political purposes, or they can manipulate things and all that I looked into, and I definitely know the Nicola.
Case, you know very well.
Yeah, there's no there's no out of it, like, there is no allegation. And that's actually why a lot of these are being announced, not from a White House podium. They're just happening, you know, from the desk, and they're only being reported after the fact of the communtation. The Ross Albert thing was very different. Right, There's a whole pr strategy that rolled out for this Carlos I mean, we have to learn that from his associates and from others, that this guy is getting out of prison.
You're like, what, yeah, hold on a second.
Well, Trump got asked about the Nicola ruck guy, and he framed it in political terms. He said basically like, oh, this guy's crime was supporting Donald J.
Trump.
I mean, first of all, he wasn't even until he was in trouble, he was not a known at least Trump supporter.
But then once he.
Saw that, oh my hail Mary, chance to get out of these charges and get out of prison is to you know, send some money to Trump. And so, you know, Trump himself frames it in totally nakedly political terms to remind people about the Carlos Watson one. We did cover this extensively. Part of what's hilarious is if you go and look at this like ozy media, fake channel that he had propped up, like it was some you know giant media behemoth, and everyone was like, who what, We've
never heard of this that happened to me. It was the most like cringe identity lib type of crimes.
And remember Hillary spoke at their conference at I actually met a guy once and he's like, oh, I work at ozy Media. Like what and he was like, yeah, you know, we're doing actually really well. And I went, I go, I have never heard of this thing once and then I banked it. You know, in my mind years later this all happens.
They had all these Remember we went and looked at their channel and the views would be like, you know, fairly significant and that on some videos. Some videos had like no views, and then occasionally you'd have a video that had like a very high view count. But then you'd go and look, there were almost no likes, there were almost no comments.
It was completely and totally fake.
Yeah, he bought them from India or some Bangladeshi click fit. Is that what I was? I think that's what it was.
And then what was the most preposterous is he he pretended to be a YouTube rep on a call with I don't I think it was like Goldman Sacks or something like him.
As associates pretended to be a representative from YouTube with the camera off during a meeting while they were pitching, you know, basically raised he's.
Using some i think like voice modifier to try to and the Golden Sacks people were like, oh, this is really weird. I mean, you just got caught red handed. These are not cases that were really close calls. Right again, talk to a girl, pump and dump. Apparently pump and dumps are just legal now. The President did onel with Malania going the you know, Javier Malay whatever, like apparently that's just like a thing you can do now, but
not letting her off the hook. But you know, these other ones are just not even remotely close cases.
And it's just so clear.
That no matter how much of a live or a Hunter Biden associate or whoever that you've been in the past, if you can get in Donald Trump's good graces, then you can get away with absolutely anything. It is truly astonishing and to your point, Sober put before up on the screen.
So this is.
Really kind of a whole of government effort to let a lot of white collar crime and a lot of corporate crime go unpunished. You've had the obviously the attack on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is like the anti scam agency SEC no longer regulating the crypto market nationally. Relations Board is once again without a quorum. So if you're a worker trying to fight for worker rights, you
have nowhere to go. And a public citizen has been tracking this corporate clemency and apparently a quarter a quarter, twenty five percent of all corporate enforcement has been dropped at this point.
Wow.
So it really is a whole of government effort to let more white collar criminals get away with, you know, scamming the public and truly doing whatever it is that they really want to do.
Yeah, I mean, I think it's egregious and it is just something that's been back to the first Trump administration. He pardoned people like or not pardoned, commuted people like Michael Milkin.
The most Jesus.
Yeah.
And also just so you guys know, if you go to the White House, now you know what's right across the street, the Milkin Institute, which is just a little bit too.
Perfect for me. Wow.
Anyway, den a Thief's great book recommendation if you've never read it.
The movie Wall Street was based on.
Some of the characters that were in there by ib Oski and Michael. Michael Milkin is one of the most notorious why collar criminals literally of all time. Like he was a cut and dry, open insider trader. They had him on tape, there was no getting around it. And he basically use his gains since then to launder his reputation in the public health space and others since then.
And eventually Rudy Giuliani, who's one of the people who prosecuted Milkan, is then the one who gets Trump to get him his I think it's his pardon or his commutation some years later.
It was completely insane.
Well think about it. I mean the Eric Adams situation.
Well, he hasn't gotten this yet, right.
They dropped the charges against him. Pressure from DOJ and forced them to drop the charges. And remember you had, you know, various people are involved that Federal District Court who were like, I'm out, like this is latantly immoral, unethical. And these were people who were like one of them was like a I can't remember which of the conservative justices that she had clerked for. She was like, I'm out, that's right, this is nakedly political. Yes, and yeah, it
was the same. He was able to position himself like, oh, the deep stays down to give me because I want to help Trump on immigration whatever. I mean, it's just it's just so obvious. It's just so obvious, and it makes a mockery of the Our justice system is flawed in a million different ways, there's no doubt about it. But again, the aspiration is that it should be neutral, right.
The aspiration is that you should at least have the expectation that it's not just like if I can suck up to this person, then I can get away with it, and that gone out the way.
Well, I mean I have spoken against us.
There is no actually, there is really no reason other than the holdover from the monarchical period when this was invented, that the president should have such a unilateral pardon and clemency power.
Actually, it's literally nuts.
It is borrowed at that time from the powers that the Czar and that the Kings had. Wow, based on the European SYS. So just everyone's away full model of where it all comes from.
Full model.
Yeah, it makes it makes absolutely no sense.
So we are now getting confirmation from BB Netanyahu that the official plan for the Gaza Strip. You know, we've been talking abou oh, what's the plan for the day after? From the beginning, some of us have been saying, you know, the plan is probably full ethnic cleansing and removal of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and complete reoccupation bb At. Netanyahu now confirming that that is in fact the case.
He says, if your Hebrews a little rusty, or Arabic as a little rusty as mine, as Yery says, we are ready to discuss the final phase of the war. Hamas will lay down its arms, its leaders will be allowed to leave. We will take care of security in Gaza and implement Trump's voluntary migration plan. This is our plan, We're not hiding it, and we're ready to talk about it at any time. This, of course, comes amid a renewed bombing campaign and ground invasion and complete siege of
the Gaza Strip. Gaza Strip has already been reduced effectively to rubble, according to Trump's envoy there, Steve Witcoff, who went and visited Gaza and said there's basically nothing left. We continued to get horror stories of the atrocities that are being committed there. We also have this, we could put this next piece up on the screen more details about the systematic use of Palestinians as human shields. Every
accusation is a confession. This is published in Haretzu, this Israeli newspaper says in Gaza, almost every IDF platoon keeps a human shield a sub army of Palestinian slaves. May go ahead and read this to you this person rights. I served in Gaza for nine months, first came across these procedures called Mosquito protocol in December twenty twenty three. It was only two months into the ground defensive long before there was a shortage of dogs from the IDF's
canine unit who were used for this purpose. This became the insane unofficial excuse for this insane unofficial procedure. I didn't realize then how ubiquitous using human shields, who we refer to as shahwish would become.
Today.
Almost every platoon keeps a shawish. No infantry force enters a house before a Shawish clears it. This means there are four shawishes in a company, twelve in a battalion, and at least thirty six in a brigade. We operate a sub army of slaves. So this coming directly from someone who served in the Gaza Strip in the IDF for nine months, Saga. We'd received reports of this before, but this speaks to the widespread systematic use of Palestinians
for this purpose. But wanted to get your reaction to what BB is announcing there and saying like, oh, Trump's plan to take over Gaza. Yeah, that's our plan. We're not hiding it. That's what we're going for. And we know that they had actually spoken to some African nations
about like, hey, will you take these people? And if you think that this is going to be quote unquote voluntary migration, I mean this is part of what the current ste ourvation campaign is designed to compel, to force them to have no other choice if they want to live, but to leave the Gaza Strip.
And that's also the issue with the overall US policy right now is we explicitly quasi endorsed this from the beginning, and so now we own it, and in that way, we are now responsible both obviously not only in terms of providing weapons, but most importantly in terms of how this is going to reshape things in the region. In the future, because if you think about our relationship with Jordan, with Saudi Arabia, I mean, if we have some grand goal in the Middle East, what it is for me,
it's get the hell out. But you know, I guess if we're going to stay is to what is to secure peace in this region which is very important petrochemicals to the United States. Well, how exactly are we supposed to be doing any of this whenever we are explicitly backing and then responsible and endorsing this mass expulsion. That's why no US government ever, even some of the most pro Israel press of all time, have always moved against the Israelis and trying to trying to move them away
from what their obvious goal in this case was. It's only Trump was just taking the mask off. I mean even Biden tacitly somewhat endorsed it, right, but rhetorically would not go all the way there. Trump was just being thinking he's smart, being like, oh, we're gonna We're going to own the Gaza strip and then also backing effectively the mass expulsion. And so when you have that endorsement, they will take that and run with it as far as they can possibly go and uh, yeah, the ramifications
for us is disastrous. That human shields thing too. Like you said, this is also part of what drives me crazy, is uh, there is a thing in the West where we're not really allowed to even say these things until the Israeli press admits them.
And then even then, you.
Know, you wouldn't see that time, see it exactly.
That is what drives me. You know, this recently happened. We haven't had time to put in this New York Times report. I'm not sure if you saw it, which it's multiple pages long, and it's about the role of the Pentagon and the CIA in running the war in Ukraine. And I mean, I've been screaming here for three years about all this stuff, but it's like you're not allowed to admit it until it becomes verified by the New York Times. I feel that way in this case as well.
And yeah, in the Western press and and all of our discussion here of the conflict, we just look, we don't even pay any attention, and.
They're writing it in English for all of us to see. It's not difficult.
And this doesn't even mean you have to be some Kefia wearing palate. You just have to be like, yeah, I don't know, you know, why are we paying for this? What exactly are we getting out of this? You can even be callous if you want to look at it that way. And yet, you know, the media environment here is just so propagandized and shaped that Yeah, even the quasi liberal institutions are not able. You know, we're about to talk about this medics thing. I just saw this
from Ryan. Ryan flagged that in the New York Times. They're like, we can't independently verify these claims. And Ryan's like, you guys want to Pulitzer Prize and you don't know how to get someone in Gaza on the phone.
You don't know what are you doing?
Yeah, he says, yeah, because this is about Red Crescent, Yes, which is their equivalent of the Red Cross Red Crescent medics. He's like, you can't get the Red Crescent on the phone.
To I verify.
I've never met them. I guarantee I could do it.
You know.
To your point, Schiel Beneferin, who we have had on the show, who is like a self described liberal Zionist, he was saying on Twitter, you know, left out of this conversation about like the deportations of the protesters and the crackdown on descent and.
All of this stuff.
Is the fact that and he was someone who was critical of the protesters like this was is not a kafia wherein Guy right, he was like the protesters were right. Israel has behaved in exactly as monstrous a way I'm paraphrasing. These aren't exactly his words, and exactly as monstrous away
as they were depicted, and they were. And that's the thing, is like, from the very beginning of this onslaught post October seventh, the people who were the most maximalist on lefties, kafia wearing people were the most accurate about what the
goals were and what this would ultimately look like. You could listen to them, or you could listen to the settlers, the most fanatic zelots about their goals, and that would have given you a much better understanding of what the goals were and what was likely to unfold than listening either to the propagandists in Israel or certainly the propagandist here in the US, either from a political class or
from our media class. But to speak to the incident that you're talking about here, there were fifteen Palestinian medics, including one UN and employee, who were executed in Gaza.
And you're talking about fifteen.
People who were killed one by one, so intentionally killed one after another and then buried.
In a mass grave.
So at the State Department briefing, whoever this person is, this new you know, the equivalent of Matthew Miller of this administration, gets asked about this and whether there's going to be any sort of accountability for this naked atrocity and slaughter intentionally of Paramedics's take a listen to what she had to say.
The UN's Humanitarian Affairs Office has said that fifteen paramedics, civil defense and a UN worker were killed, in their words, one by one by the idea. They have dug bodies up, they said, in the shallow grave that have been gathered up, and also vehicles in the sun. Have you got any assessment at what might have happened? And given the potential use of American weapons, is there any assessment of whether or not this complied with international law?
Well, I can tell you that for too long Hamas has abused civilian infrastructure cynically using it to shield themselves. Hamas's actions have caused humanitarians to be caught in the crossfire. The use of civilians or civilian objects to shield or impede military operations is itself a violation of international humanitarian law, and of course we expect all parties on the ground to comply with international humanitarian law.
But there's specifically a question on any It's a question about accounting and accountability given may have been the use of US weapons, So it's a question about the State Department rather than Hamas. Is there any actions.
Well, every single thing that is happening in Gaza is happening because of Hamas, every single dynamic.
Every single thing that is happening in Gaza is happening because of Hamas. I mean, it's just like, I mean, it's you know, the Biden administration.
It's not really any different. It's just more it's more.
Naked, more brazen, like Israel literally has zero agency or zero responsibility for any of their actions, which we know has decimated the entire Kaza strip killed.
We don't even have a clue.
Tens of thousands at the least, women and children, elderly, paramedics, journalists, schools are leveled, moss are leveled, I mean, it's just on and on and on, and the official stance of the State Department is they bear zero responsibility. So they could literally nuke the Gaza strip and it's all Hamasa's fault.
They have no agency for their actions at all.
But if Russia nukes Ukraine, then all of us have to get into you see how this all falls apart.
It's all preposterous.
Let's go to the next part here, because honestly, this is this is pretty grim. Quote, only three percent of Jewish Israelis are quote morally opposed to the Trump Net and Yahoo plan to depopulate Gaza. Some fourteen percent consider it a distraction. More than eighty percent say they support the forced removal from Goza area. That's pretty important, you know. You know, this is the other thing that we may underestimate.
As much as the Israeli press is actually far far more honest about their coverage and airing of dissent, we should also be real about where the majority of the population is. And we should not make the critical mistake that Westerners always make, which is pointing to dissident media inside of the country and seeing, see this is what they're being exposed to, that would be like an outsider pointing to Jacobin or something.
So let's see this is available in America.
It's like, yeah, it's it's available, but like, that's not what people are reading.
Every day, probably more Americans that read Haraz.
Yeah, you're right, I've spent a lot of time in this. You know what they watch, They watch the same.
Bullshit that we do, which is their stupid cable news, their equivalent to Fox News. And yeah, their equivalent of Fox News very different than Horetes, which we've played some of the clips here, but you have to translate from Hebrew, so it's more difficult for us to understand.
But you ever go there, I can guarantee you they love TV.
Israelis actually love the news in the same way that I guess we do, you know, in terms of our addiction to cable television. And I can tell you the cable TV over there very different than what you're reading in Horetes or Times of Israel.
Ahead and move on to this next piece with SOCCA. I know you have taken great interest in Solicans.
It's just a little too per.
It's two on the nose.
Yeah, Republicans have of course been very upset and opposed to DEI and critical race theory and ibramex Kendy's whole are like whole ideological archetype of You can't just be not racist, you have to be anti anti racist.
It is not enough to be just not racist. You have to be anti racist.
Yes, there we go.
So some of this language, though, when it's about Israel, suddenly is being received with open arms from the what Dave Smith is called.
The woke right.
Let's go ahead and take a listen to this rabbi who was brought by Republicans to testify about the you know, the scourge of anti Semitism across the country.
Take a listen to this.
Anti Semitism is not just an angel prejudice. It is a temporary crisis manifesting on campuses across the nation. It is not enough for individuals institutions to merely claim they are not anti Semitic. As my father once taught me, it is not enough for people, especially public figures, to be neutral or not be anti semitic. One must be anti anti Semitic. We must demand the same of our
universities and government institutions. This hearing, in my opinion, is an attempt to be just that anti anti Semitic.
We need anti anti semitism. I mean, it's beyond parody. Also, I went and I checked the tape that witness was introduced, specifically by Senator Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana. Took me about two minutes to find tweets of his railing against critical race theory. So anyway, there you go. And it's a little bit too on the nose, isn't it, Because what this shows us is that the DEI the I
now stands for Israel. We've relessed, we have left in illusion off and we've put Israel in from affirmative action in the state of Florida to the fact that we are literally deporting people who are here legally and have done nothing else other than pen and opinion and tell them to leave because of their opinion on a foreign country.
We're open, we're spending.
I was thinking about that too, and I yes, I understand that it's not just about money, but you do need to think that if the government is discrete resources, why are there five or six agents. Do you know how much it costs, you know, just to even employ all of them, and to go and then to arrest this lady and then put her on a plane to Louisiana.
Like that's what you do for like actual criminals.
Here, we're doing it for somebody who rode in op ed against funding Israel.
That's right?
And what are we doing?
And to your point, yeah, like for people who are on board with the mass deportation plan, I would expect you wouldn't want to prioritize actual criminals. We know there's a lot how about that, we know there's a limited amount of resources, and instead you've got, you know, five six, a whole mob of these plane closed mass officers waiting for someone to like, you know, step out to break their sath with their friends because she committed a thought crime.
And it's not just our you know, it's hundreds of students at this point who have been flag for deportation, some of which have gotten this same like you know, mass response flown down to Louisiana or transferred to Texas, et cetera. And as we've said before, it doesn't stop with the students either. It does not I mean with the immigrants either or even with the students. You know, they are talking about pro palestimee protests as being in
favor of terrorism. That has implications in terms of criminalizing anyone who participates in those protests. They're using this as a cudgel in order to enforce compliance and conformity at universities. They've threatened sixty different universities with repercussions if they don't, you know, do whatever the administration wants them to do. And you know, basically they are using this framework to as a cudgel to go against institutions and people that
they consider to be their political adversaries. I mean, I think pro Palestine just basically stands in for like the left, you know, universities who they think fostered anti Semitism or didn't do enough or whatever, like these are their ideological adversaries, and so they're using this framework that was sort of laying around That's what I talked about in my monologue yesterday in order to This is way beyond any of the worst of the like cancel culture epidemic on the
left because of the way that the state is aggressively enforcing these speech codes to actually punish and deport people.
Yet to bring it back to anti racism for anybody who suffered through Ibraheim Kendy's books. What he proposes is actually a Department of Anti Racism, which would effectively do stuff like this but on behalf of critical race theory. So it's worse because they've actually not only replaced the I and DEI for Israel, but then they're actually using the government for those purposes. And you know, you were talking about some of that action. So I'm not sure
if you saw it. Just yesterday Princeton University or last night Prince University and Harvard University have had their funding
put on pause over the anti Semitism initiative. Now, look, if we were doing that to actually like blow these people up and you know, make it so that these elite institutions not only are not only like bilking people for literally hundreds of thousands of dollars, ripping off the American taxpayer, I wouldn't be fine with it because I still wouldn't want to use anti semences as a pretext.
But I'd say whatever.
But look at what they actually extracted from Columbia University is what the ability to expel like students for protesting on behalf of Palestine and then replaced the middle Eastern Studies Department. To what benefit is that to me is the American taxpayer or to the student. That's not the point. That's not why people hate higher education. You know, there
are many many reasons. Actually, I was just looking yesterday Harvard admitted less people and it's class of twenty twenty three than it did in the class of like nineteen eighty two, even though the United States has grown by about one hundred million people or so that far.
Do you know why they do that?
Exclusivity to be able to charge more And that's a crime, in my opinion, you know, really to artificially restrict her class size to try and bilk as many people as possible and also use your reputation to basically steal money from people who are applying to you, even though the odds and all that have dropped.
We could talk about that in a much more equitable way.
Why are we doing it on behalf of quote anti Semitism, which is one of the fakest panics that has struck the United States here now in the last decade. This is probably akin similarly to the I would say, like you said, the woke cancel culture stuff, me too, et cetera. That happened in the mid two thousands, except this one now has the arm of the state behind it, which obviously makes it worse. Yeah, it's just preposterous. And then
same thing. Look, yes, it's great to see Matt Walsh be like, oh this is bad, and a few other right wing influencers. It's like, yeah, that's nice, but where's the members of Congress, Where's you know, the people in power,
who's why are people not you know, pointing to this. This was a witness who was invited by the Republicans to testify, like and nobody sees the contradiction and the fact that you know, this person even gets to be able to witness, you know, to be in the opening statement, which is obviously submitted for the record and cleared with all of these staffers, that it didn't even enter their mind shows you the level of hypocrisy.
That we've now reached.
Very true, very well, it's bad.
It's I mean, it's not just bad, it's horrific, because they really are My only hope is and I think I said this in your monologue is now our eyes are open.
I think the world's eyes are open.
The polling data indicates this on behalf of Israel and of US attitudes towards them. And there are a lot of people who have can no longer be silenced for quote noticing, and Tim Dillon one of those people.
So why don't we take a listen to that?
Yep?
Is this being done from America for Israel? I mean, this is a fair question. Is the United States government now just taking edicts and orders from Israel? Is this what people voted for when they elected Trump is to have a country taking orders from Israel?
I don't think so.
So you know, I respect him, and you know what I like about that is we can sit here and talk about this stuff all day long, but that being in the bro sphere, that's a good thing.
That's in that positive And that's what I mean.
People are gonna notice, and yes, a lot of the bad is being done, and I'm not downplaying any of that, but I do think that things are going to shake out very differently than the pro Israel lobby.
Thanks right now.
I don't know, Sorr.
We'll see, we'll see, But too, I mean, what the country will survive now, Like we're going to continue ten years, fifteen years from now, People who grow up in this era, are going to be like me growing up during the war in Iraq. And you're gonna tell them, come to me and tell me smoking gun is going to be a mushroom cloud.
I'm gonna laugh in your face, right, That's what's going to happen.
Yeah, I mean, it's just it's part of a it's part of a broader project, right, and it's part of a broader project specific with regard to education in universities in particular. I mean, this is like you know, Trump's executive Order on quote unquote patriot patriotic education. You know, they want to have leverage over these universities to control the type of education that you know, the students who Harvard and Yale and all these institutions are very powerful.
Those are the people who end up in power.
They want to use this cudgel in order to enforce compliance across you know, this is this is sort of the tip of the spear. And then it's the same thing with the you know, the warrant CRT and DEI and I have my own issues with those ideologies, et cetera, but there's a concerted effort to teach a sanitized version of history, and this is part of the cudgel that is that is being used to effectuate that broader outcome, because they do see these universities as an alternative power center.
And so you know, this is something and are a sort of ideological architecture that has been supported both by liberals like Joe Biden and most of the elected Democratic political leaders and much of the media New York Times, et cetera. And so it's the easiest way for them to really push that project. But I don't think that it stands alone. It's part of a broader project.
Definitely is in an I guestion.
So the difference then between you and me is, yeah, I have no problem withholding funding from Harvard from any of these other people for propping up DEI or teaching for critical race theory, because that concerns our country.
I do have a big problem with.
Which I mean. But the idea of intellectual freedom.
Is like lists, it's agree with you, but like if you, you know, want to teach.
Oh, yeah, you're welcome to.
You have a fifty billion dollar endowment that you can draw down every day. Me is the American taxpayer, and others we can vote to withhold our funding from said institutions now, and I think that's a pretty fair, pretty fair rebuttal.
I think there's the that's actually fair in that the universities, I mean Harvard and certainly Yale and these other Ivy League institutions, they have the endowments where we talked about with Columbia, like, they don't actually need the four hundre million dollars. They could fill in that gap. It wouldn't be a problem. These endowments have become so massive and
they're like a business in and of themselves. But not many universities do not fall into that category, right, and they're actually the ones that are most vulnerable, which is why it's so disheartening to see the Harvard's and the Colombia's and the Ivy League institutions, which are in a position to actually stand up for intellectual freedom, you know, and their own integrity. It's completely capitulating in the face of this assault.
I don't know.
See, the thing is public education by default, if it's going to be funded by the public, then of course we get to say. The idea that you should have intellectual freedom at a quote public university is preposterous because public education is for the purpose of quote educating the public based on the payer right, So we.
Don't we want a public that's educated like about you know, the educate raducated toy and Jim Crow.
Educated to what end?
The purpose of public education is to benefit the American taxpayer by having people who are skilled it's curious or whatever I mean, and to become a better Sitzan.
But there's also like an economic benefit to this.
So you don't think that public universities there should be like intellectual freedom of public university.
I mean it is also not a public university.
Under that argument. Yeah, I agree with you, and that's what I'm trying to say.
Though, is it at a state level, Like if the state of Massachusetts, if they had a literal white power curriculum, do you think that would be acceptable? I would say absolutely not the state of Massachusetts at the University of Massachusetts, if they those taxpayers voted to say that that's not in line with what we want to teach our schools.
Be my guest, it's your university. You guys are the ones who funded.
And so you think that teaching about you know, the scourge of slavery and let's say are you known side against Native Americans is forever is equivalent to a white power seminar.
Well, I think that if you're going to teach it in such a way like the sixteen nineteen project did, which was also funded and then used of some of these elite universities, to say America is a revically racist, then what are we all doing here? I mean, there's no point, you know, to this entire thing. So this is the problem, is you think one is justifiable and not. I'm making a point about academic freedom, which is genuinely
value neutral. So if the taxpayer and the public broadly mostly agrees with me about critical race theory and DEI, and yes, they should be able to and that's what you say, Joe's universities should not be allowed to do this with our dollars.
You know, that's actually not even true though, that the taxpayer in the country agrees with you about DEI. But I think we can all recognize that there are some intellectual inquiries that are worthy of debate, you know, to take it out of race, like, some intellectual inquiries that are worthy of debate, and some which are only add confusion to the debate. So, for example, it wouldn't be like, you know, worthy ofdemic freedom to have some flat earther
there trying to make their case, et cetera. But to have people who you know, see race as a central component of our nation's history, and you know, teach courses on that, teach courses on you know, gender studies has been a big target. I would say that understanding the dynamics of our genders and our differences has perhaps never been more important. There's a lot that we could learn from there. I think that that is completely within.
The bounds finding taught at a school.
And certainly represents the sort of academic freedom that the right, you know, really like obsessed over during when you know, during the Biden administration and previously, so you know, to enforce this sort of conformity and like you have to learn quote unquote patriotic history that doesn't ever cast the
America in a negative light. I mean, that's what they're going for here, and they're using anti Semitism as a cudgel in order to help bring these universities to hear so that they're only teaching the versions of American history that are approved by this particular rognment.
If you want to put your kid into some howard zin university, that's your right. You know, you can go to some private university. But if public funded universities by the taxpayer obviously have a right not only in the say on the curriculum, but and to be paying forward to propping up said departments which are genuinely one hundred percent funded by them and not some major endowment.
I genuinely couldn't disagree more.
I mean, I don't really understand then, your opposition to what they're doing with antisemity.
Because we're doing it on behalf of this is But know.
What they would say is that this is our foreign policy. This is our This is the argument Marko Rubio and others make. This is our national security, This is our foreign policy. We want our tax dollars to go to further our national interest as American citizens, and part of our interest is in combating anti Semitism and bolstering our ally Israel in the Middle East.
So what's your issue with what they're doing?
No, that's my point is that I completely disagree with that.
But I'm saying, I mean, do you really do you really believe in a principle where the taxpayer has no say on the academic input or the academic environment that they're going to fund.
I believe that we should have academic freedom and intellectual exploration.
And the white powers.
I already I.
Already explained that there are certain things that are do not add to the academic or intellectual sire.
Who's setting the standard the demon society does. Yes, that's right.
Exactly, society input. Society thinks it's important. They don't agree with you on DEEI. By the way, they don't even agree with me on DEEI. Society is in favor of knowing the facts about our history, even the ugly facts about our history. And I think it's incredibly important that we be able to learn.
And you're a history guy. You know more about the stuff than I do.
Socer, that's my point, And it was important for.
Your own intellectual development to know the truth.
About those past horrors, whether it's Jim Crow or whether it's slavery, or whether it was what was done to Native American people on these lands. That's not to say like, oh, you have to live with that shame and guilda this is you know what the right always says.
But yeah, you.
Want to learn from the past, you to learn from the mistakes so we don't repeat them again in the future. And that's what's under assault here with this onslaught against universities. They want to bring them to heal so that only the quote unquote, the sanitized quote unquote patriotic version of history that is not honest about the warts and the truth of you know, things that our country has been in.
I would say to see curriculum for which you're describing that as because I think, go look at.
What Pregger he was putting out, Go look at the.
Curriculum Florida University.
They used that for curriculums in places like Florida as part of this patriotic education push.
This is the broader project. And so if you don't see the way.
That this anti Semitism thing is being used as a cudgel to enforce a broader bringing to heal of these universities, like that is just one plank of the plan here, That is the tip of the spear. But the broader plan is to completely bring these universities to heal and make them comply with whatever sanitized history that this particular.
Administration is yours quote quote sanitized history the other quote, true history is one where we just sit there and we're supposed to be like, oh, and these are all the most horrible things about America. You know, my education in Texas was terrible. And it wasn't because it was woke. It was genuinely just not Actually it had one inch depth, of which ninety nine percent of the US population will ever actually read below. The vast majority of what I've
learned has been reading on myself. And what I have learned is what is that there is deep complexity to the issue, and that with Jim Crow, and with the slavery and the South, and the debates at the US Constitutional Convention during the Civil War and more, we're not often all pure and heroic in the way.
That we like to learn or all that evil.
Is that there was a deep amount of gray area in that time, and that actually the story of how we were able to emerge today to a much more equal society, not yet of where we are is remarkable and is one in which we should absolutely study and
I think we should celebrate now. I think critical race theory what it does is invert that on its head, and to say no, actually, where we are today is an immense failure and we didn't get there, and this so called true history or whatever, it's just like leftist claptrap. To be honest, it's not one which genuinely grapples with any of the good of the US. Is done because, like I reference with Howard's Inn and more, it views it as this evil empire morally corrupted its founding, as
the sixteen nineteen project does. And what that instills in people and or the citizen is one this idea that we can never get better instead of looking at both.
I am equally.
Famis my issue familiar with your opinion, However, the question is do you think that learning about those things should be effectively banned by the state. I mean, but that's the goal, that is the goal is to enforce conformity on these universities and to push a sanitized narrative so that you know, I just think that listen, you can agree or disagree with how central races and the way that this infected, you know, affected our nation's development.
I would say that it's.
Been a pretty important part of many of the most critical battles in terms of, you know, how we've gotten to where we are today, and important to learn about and see the legacy of et cetera. But like I just to I believe you've previously spoken on behalf of academic freedom, and to think that that's out of bounds, or that the state should use its power to bully universities out of teaching that sort of you know, sort of history, is I think pretty wild.
Here's I want to be clear, I'm talking specifically about public education. I think we can all agree curriculum is propaganda in some form, yes or no. Now, in that propaganda, we all democratically get to decide in that public education for what should be and should be not taught in
our classrooms. This is ultimately a parental decision. In fact, I think what you're laying out is a ridiculous idea where the taxpayer is supposed to give you unlimited or whatever amount of funds and you're able to just be able to do whatever you want and preach that to children and or create curriculum for students science.
We cannot live in a society.
First of all, we're talking and have never talking specifically about universities.
Okay number one, yes, but these are publicly funded.
Every time I look at my property tax, Bill, I'm pretty sure I know where a lot of it's going.
And we're predominantly talking about I mean, this just gets to a I think a fundamental difference about what the university system is even for, because in my opinion, the university system is not, including the public university system, is all about academic and intellectual exploration. That's how even you know, even thinking through things that might be out of bounds right politically, that are outside of the certainly the consensus of the public. Like, that's how you push research and
intellectual activity forward. And so yes, I think that's important to support at both the public university level and you know, certainly private university you should be able to do what they want. They're not doing good job as standing up for themselves in the face of this onslaught. But yes, of course, I think having academic curiosity and risk taking within the university system.
I see that.
As a as a core value of the university system. I don't see it as a place where we're just supposed to like stamp out these conformist ideas and you know, based on what the current regime approves that you're allowed to learn about like that is just that is completely foreign to my notion of what the university system is supposed to be all earning.
An issue here, which is what did I say that I didn't actually learn all that much in school. I've mostly learned about it myself. So if you're curious, you can. All the information you need is out there, and I've got about one percent of what I need and I'll be looking for with the rest of the five percent of what I'm able to consume over the course of my life. But last thing here is you made a good point about what is education, the course of public education.
Why did we create it was to create a more skilled populace. And my problem for economic benefit, that's the truth. It's all namby pam be nice to say, oh, intellectual curiosity, et cetera. The problem that we have today is that way too many people go to college to pursue degrees which are not economically viable and which saddle them up with a lot of debt. The solution to that is not to offer quote free college so that everybody can
go get little box checks. It's to make sure that people pursue higher educational, vocational training or wherever, or perhaps a four year college degree for the purpose of being able to pursue the American dream, which you individually get to define for yourself. So that's my last thing, is just like this idea that you're going to be conformist because you go to college. I went to a college
with a bunch of woke people. In fact, being around them made me a lot more intellectually curious about what I wasn't learning in school, and you could pursue it for yourself. But that's an inversion of this idea that everything you're ever going to learn about the world is going to be at a four year college. No, we're supposed to lay a foundation for which you yourself can go from there in spring.
Some of that is risk taking, et cetera.
But and like I said, the purpose of public education, and while we funded itself, is not to have people sitting around reading proosts or whatever. It's so that you can go out, you can get a job which is going to benefit yourself and ultimately benefit the entire culd.
I think that treating human beings and their education as solely being about becoming effective cogs in the American capitalist machine.
Yeah, I disagree with that end.
Goal of that being the only goal in our education, especially school and especially our university system.
Yeah, but I'm saying, even in a communist system, why do they send people to university? It wasn't again to be sitting around and reading and debating markets.
Funny that this is so fat send them to as I think this is so funny to come from you, because you're so intellectually curious, absolutely, and you're so well read and not everything that you consume is about like, how can I generate more profit? How can I like you make you.
Value?
And it has made you part of who you are, that you have that intellectual curiosity and that you have that intellectual development. And I'm not saying that all of that comes within a like traditional school system, of course
it doesn't. But I think an important part, especially for young adults within that system, when you have a fantastic professor who opens your eyes up to something, who helps you to understand something you didn't understand before, to help you explore the world, to help you learn about history and see the lessons of the past and be able to apply them to the present, and you know, understand
better the trajectory that you're on. So yeah, of course I think that that's important part of the university system and that it's not all just about like I mean, why should anyone go to university at all if you're just like training to for your end goal as a human being of your career.
No, a lot of people actually shouldn't go. And I've said that before. I think the amount of people go is way too high. Probably should be twenty thirty percent less because I think last I checked it was like forty five percent.
But I mean, that's what I'm saying.
Is the flip is I'm not going to sit here and tell you or even believe in a system where the public education system is supposed.
To be the be all and all of on it.
As I said, that was much more inspired to read and to be individually more curious from what I didn't learn in school and asking questions about that. So it just comes down to the fact that I believe that the reason public education exists literally at all, and you can go and look for why we decided for this grand experiment in the first place was genuinely not nice to say it, but the truth is is so we could all be more beneficial to each other. Part of
that is intellectual exercise and more. But a lot of what public education has become has become an economic saddle on the American taxpayer and on the individual who is participating in the system, who is hobbling their life forever. I believe in individual pursuit of what it is that you want to do.
I like to read for my own edification.
I'm very lucky I've been able to pursue a career in something like that. But even if I didn't do this, I would still be doing it whenever I was doing something else. That's what I like to do. But that's my point is it wasn't necessarily something inspired by the great public universe or private university.
I guess where I went for something.
It basically comes back to this idea of why is the public participating this in the future. I just believe, of course, the public has a right and has a responsibility to be honest of being involved in this and not some blank tabula rasa slate where these professors are allowed to take our dollars and then do whatever they want. That has never existed for literally all of human history or conception of public education. It has always been any curricula in which the state is paying for is itself
a debate and is propaganda in some form? It's about a war of what is supposed to be in that propaganda to shape a better citizen ree And then that's the debate that you and I are having now.
I think universities should be about intellectual exploration, and I don't think that they will benefit from having a heavy hand of the state coming in to enforce what is acceptable thought. And I think we see that very clearly with the efforts that are being taken here with regard to quote unquote antisemitism.
So we can leave it there.